At a recent planning meeting, Pasco County NOW member Doris Rosen addressed Horwich and a handful of her USF classmates, saying she hoped that being part of the conference would lead to a lifetime commitment. Rosen has attended previous NOW conferences across the country, and she emphasized the feeling of togetherness that results from such confabs. "When we try to do something, we don't do it just for us, but for all women."
She does admit that, with so many political animals in a room, the meetings can be contentious. "They do micro-manage," she confesses about what happens as resolutions are hammered out, but says it's important work that sets the national policy for the upcoming year.
Aubrey Hall, who was born 18 years after Roe v. Wade, says she can't understand how anti-abortion legislation ever became a priority this year with the unemployment rate so high and foreclosures still rolling in at an epic rate, and says she'll never understand it.
If NOW isn't in the headlines as much as it used to be, leadership contends that they're fighting just as hard as ever on some of the biggest issues in our culture, such as the argument in D.C. over which federal programs to cut in order to get Congressional approval to raise the debt ceiling in early August.
That's the day when the U.S. Treasury says if the debt ceiling isn't raised, the government will run out of money, which some bond directors say would be catastrophic.
Among the most intense discussions are those being led by Vice President Joe Biden, and include Democrats and Republicans — but they're all men, leading the Older Women's Economic Security Task Force to write to President Obama, calling for the concerns of women to be considered in budget talks to reducing the deficit.
"Look, women are 50 percent of the population, and we have quite a few smart, capable wonderful women in this country. For there to be no women at the table is unacceptable," says O'Neill.
USF student Jackie Horwich agrees. "Women make up half the population in America, why aren't we included?" she asks. "Why are we still fighting this fight... it's so frustrating, it's 2011 and we still aren't there. Why aren't we talking about this?"
NOW has always been a political organization, and it's obvious that its members, young, middle-aged and older are political people, which perhaps puts them in the minority of a culture that seems more enamored than ever by celebrity.
Then there are those who believe the organization has seen better days and is searching for relevance.
Maggie Thornton is a conservative blogger based in Tulsa who writes a blog called Maggie's Notebook. In a recent fiery screed, she blasted the group on a variety of fronts, accusing it of putting taxpayer-funded abortions on their agenda, and wrote, "like most groups formed to accomplish big things [civil rights and equality], those things have been accomplished so the agenda has to find other missions to keep going."
Thornton is also among those who believe the organization is simply a haven for liberals, but has no room for anybody else.
But NOW's Terry O'Neill says the organization doesn't sit on its hands when a conservative woman is unfairly attacked, such as when comic Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a "twat" recently. Also she says, they came to the defense of California GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman last year, after an aide to Democrat Jerry Brown, whom California NOW strongly endorsed, called her a whore.
But for all the work that NOW members believe still needs to be done, advances are happening in 2011. Earlier this month, Jill Abramson broke the glass ceiling at the New York Times by being appointed its executive editor, prompting former NOW president (and now Ms. Magazine publisher) Eleanor Smeal to say the hiring "smashes a barrier to women's achievement in print and digital media." Likewise encouraging, one of the local speakers at the conference will be Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor; neither her gender nor her sexual orientation (she is lesbian) has ever been an issue in Tampa.
At USF, students say they're excited to be working with feminists who have been involved in the equal rights struggle for decades. Aubrey Hall says the torch is being passed to her generation. "They fought for us to be in the workplace, so now we're fine tuning to get equal pay in the same jobs... we're trying to fix it a little at a time so it's more equal for everybody."
